Ethical Writing Assignment 4

     I will be discussing about the topic “Why Privacy is Important” by James Rachels. One of the quote from “Why Privacy is important” that I want to star with is “…Why, exactly, is privacy important to us? There is no one simple answer to this question, since people have a number of interests that may be harmed by invasions of their privacy.

(a) Privacy is sometimes necessary to protect peoples interests in competitive situations”.

There are many ways a person can be harmed by the revelation of sensitive personal information. Medical records, psychological tests and interviews, court records, financial records--whether from banks, credit bureaus or the IRS--welfare records, sites visited on the Internet and a variety of other sources hold many intimate details of a person's life. The revelation of such information can leave the subjects vulnerable to many abuses.

Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, replied: “The government suggests this tool could only be used once, on one phone. But that's simply not true. Once created, the technique could be used over and over again, on any number of devices. In the physical world, it would be the equivalent of a master key, capable of opening hundreds of millions of locks — from restaurants and banks to stores and homes. No reasonable person would find that acceptable”. The FBI is basically asking Apple to create a back door on their system which will take many months for them to do.

They use to have back door in software back in the days and that did not work out because they would always get hacked and the only reason was because the backdoor was used by tech support people to help people when they had problems. Hackers are not what they use to be they’re more sophisticated now. James Comey said that they would only use it for on phone and they will protect the software. The FBI on it’s on was hacked by a 15 year old who walk off with sensitive information pertaining to personnel and active agents. If you can’t protect your own network with the tools from the government at your disposal how will you be able to protect this software? Smartphone are computer asking everyone to make their phone susceptible to hackers. Security and protection are one of the same thing. John McAfee has offered the FBI his help to take that one phone and to have his team look at it. Basically to take apart and see what is in it and then give back which would not violate any laws and will not create any backdoor which cannot be applied to any other iPhone user which he says would take 3 weeks to do. People in the tech industry will stand behind Apple because they understand these issues but the CEO of Apple has a court order which they can come in and make his programmers work on it which will take time to do. I don’t understand how a federal judge in America which does not know anything about cyber security would allow the order to go through. Even Donald Trump which might be the next Republican runner said that we need to boycott Apple because he has zero understanding of the larger issues of cyber security.” Boycott all Apple products until such time as Apple gives cellphone info to authorities regarding radical Islamic terrorist couple from Cal”. If this happens then the FBI will go to Google and ask then to do the same thing then everybody is compromised. Everyone needs some room to break social norms, to engage in small "permissible deviations" that help define a person's individuality. People need to be able to think outrageous thoughts, make scandalous statements and pick their noses once in a while for that I think that with the situation going on with Apple Rachels would totally disagree.

 References:

Why Privacy is Important

James Rachels

Philosophy & Public Affairs

Vol. 4, No. 4 (Summer, 1975), pp. 323-333

McAfee, John. "JOHN MCAFEE: I'll Decrypt the San Bernardino Phone Free of Charge so Apple Doesn't Need to Place a Back Door on Its Product." Business Insider. Business Insider, Inc, 18 Feb. 2016. Web. 29 Feb. 2016.

Moyer, Justin. "FBI Director Makes Personal, Passionate Plea on Apple-San Bernardino Controversy." Washington Post. The Washington Post, 22 Feb. 2016. Web. 29 Feb. 2016.